Now, I mostly do movie-art because my originals are really, really, *really* bad. I have yet to figure out how to draw something decent without a reference picture.

So, yea, I'll post up something I just finished a couple days ago... perfect for Valentine's day, actually, because he's my favorite character ^^

So, yea, that's probably my best portrait, too. I've been drawing for nearly 3 years now, and during these past few months I've been getting better at shading. I have no idea what I'm going to do next, though...

Hey, I went to art school and I never have been able to draw anything without a model or reference picture - nothing to be ashamed of. (My mind's eye is blank, is all!) Go for live models when possible, and take your own pictures, and apply that talent to it - and you'll continue to blow us all away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Okay, clearly "[ ]" doesn't work.

TORn – where everybody knows your name! And J.R.R. Tolkien’s middle names… and the name of his publisher’s son … and the name of Aragorn’s great-great-great- grandfather on his mother’s side… and what Frodo’s name almost was…

I think you captured that slightly crazy glint he gets in his eyes sometimes. I think he looked that way when he said, "Let's hunt some orc," a line I despise, but what can you do when he looks so cute? ~~~~~~~~

At first glance I thought that someone had photoshopped a picture of him, that's how real it looks. Great, great job! "In the end the shadow is only a small and passing thing; there is light and high beauty foever beyond its reach"- J.R.R Tolkien

Oh, that is fabulous! What beautiful drawing you do! And those eyes...as if he's looking right at you! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Still 'round the corner there may wait A new road, or a secret gate...

To answer your questions, I use Canson paper that my parents bought me for Christmas; it works pretty well. I use Derwent pencils, usually ranging from 4H to 3B, though I used some 5B for the darker areas in this pic. The 4H is usually only for the sketch and the lightest parts of the pic, like the shading in the white of the eyeballs. I was taught to measure with string in my art class last fall, and that itself has helped in my "eyeballing". If I do any measuring, it's usually just with my fingers (which usually doesn't work that well, anyways *g*). My LJMy art site

Ooo, neat idea with the string... I had an art class years and years ago where our teacher gave us a stick about the size of a chopstick with colored notches in it. So we'd always use it to measure the photos we were working off of and be saying things like, "His finger goes from red to purple." I'm sure passers by thought we were bonkers.